Was LFH gay?

[Bob Cleek]

There's been a bit of bitching about things being dead in here so I decided I'd mix politics and boating and see if I could stir things up.

I presume most know LFH's history and his curmudgeonly written opinions... particularly about women and boats. (He decried advertisements in Rudder showing "women wearing nothing but a couple of gaskets and a sail stop.") Never married. Never shacked up. Single all his life. So.... did he wear "light displacement" loafers?

[rbgarr]

Things aren't THAT dead around here, Bob. ;)

[JimD]

If he was then all his boats were gay, too.

[Paul Pless]

nah, he weren't gay...

http://www.coolbuddy.com/wallpapers/movies/imgs/The_40_Year_Old_Virgin11.jpg

[dredbob]

Roger Taylor is supposed to be writing a biography of LFH. I seem to recall an article in WB or somewhere that talks about an early romance that was wrecked due to an iceboat crash or some such.

Bob

[Bob Smalser]

Have Gore Vidal do the biography if you want to ignore all arguments to the contrary.

[Meerkat]

You could always dig him up and ask him, but I doubt he'd have much to say on the subject - or any other! :D

[Bob Cleek]

LFH and his long time secretary and assistant, and later executrix of his estate, Muriel Vaughn, were very close. Rumors had it they had a thing going for years, but nobody every confirmed it. I met Ms. Vaughn in the mid seventies, after LFH passed away. She shared stories of "the Skipper," in a rather tender, loving way. I dared not ask her for the details of their relationship, of course. Muriel Vaughn had a daughter who at one point was living out here in West Marin or Sonoma. I met her as well, but only the one time. She'd be in her fifties now, I suppose. Muriel must have passed away by now. She was no spring chicken when I made her acquaintance. All those old sailing friends have passed away now. It's sort of sad. They were a wealth of learning for a young guy back then.

[Bruce Hooke]

As you are for other young folks now...

[Stiletto]

What about Phil Bolger?

[rbgarr]

Phil Bolger is gay?? Don't anyone tell Susan! ;)

[Rick Starr]

Well, while were flirting with heresies, I have wondered about the design relationship between LFH and Bolger. I am not one of PhilB's detractors, and I certainly appreciate outside-of-convention thinking, but I am puzzled that one who worked with the aestheticly gifted yet imminently practical LFH (or so we can infer of him from his designs and writing) would lean so heavily toward iconoclasm.

[Nicholas Scheuer]

I've never met P. Bolger (exchanged letters years ago) but I believer he's much more complex than the average dude.

His proclivity for "boxes" may say more about who he's working for than it does about his aesthetics. The lines of my Shearwater Yawl's hull certainly keep me interested, and I hane an appreciation for fine aesthetics, tempered as it may be by pragmatism. A favorite photo in our den shows TRUE NORTH steaming across on a glassy bay. Why? Because the way her bow parts the water, as well as the way her stern leaves it behind indicate a remarkable level of efficiency.

Could it be that some people are critical of Bolger designs because their concience bothers them? Why criticise? Why not just make another choice and let us who appreciate Bolger's genius enjoy our choices?

We don't seem to see other designers criticised by name, in print (or internet post), for all the pap they create.

Moby Nick

[Milo Christensen]

LFH's designs generally have a certain sensitivity to them.

[Frank Wentzel]

Given his lifestyle and comments made about women, I"d say the odds are in favor of LFH being a gay blade. But, what of it? Were his eyes blue or brown - that's of the same level of significance. He was all the things that made up LFH and no greater or lesser for any of them.

/// Frank ///

[Tristan]

Wirth Monroe told me about visiting LFH at his home, ringing the doorbell, LFH stuck his head out of a second story window, yelled that he was on the crapper, would be down in a minute, when Wirth got into the house he said it smelled to high heaven of dogs (which apparently LFH had plenty of). I expect that, whatever his sexual proclivities, LFH was a very "structured" individual, set in his ways, outspoken, emotionally rather closed, and not easy to live with. I met his brother Sidney a few times and he was famous for being a man of very few words, in fact, a man of virtually NO words.

[Keith Wilson]

Anyone read Schorpioen?
I've never met P. Bolger (exchanged letters years ago) but I believe he's much more complex than the average dude.I read Schorpioen, and wish I hadn't. Complex is a polite way to put it. Sometimes it's best not to know what lurks in the dark recesses of a man's mind.

[Nicholas Scheuer]

My first wife, Rosemary also read it. Thought it worthwhile, for a guy who designs boats. She liked The Compleate Cruiser and The Elements Of Seamanship, too, but left all the other books in my library alone.

Moby Nick

[rbgarr]

I don't think that negative opinions expressed about stereotypes of women indicate that someone is gay. One doesn't follow the other. Don't most rapists and murderers of women have a low opinion of them (I'm not saying LFH is either)?

Does that mean they are gay?

Edited to add: Uh oh... now someone's going to say "Of course they're gay!" and we'll be off to the races on another stereotype.

[StevenBauer]

I've been waiting for Chris to jump in with his LFH stories. He knew LF as a boy. LF was an older man then and would drive in his Ferrari to wait around at the drugsture Murial worked in for her to get off work. Chris lived nearby and was in the yard trying to fix up an old Bluejay his father had dragged home from the dump. It was to be a father and son project but his father passed away. So, anyway. L. Francis was just waiting around and offered some help in the fixing up of the Bluejay. Chris has more stories about going up to the Castle. I hope he shows up here soon.
And feel free to correct me if I got any of the story wrong. :)

Steven

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

The Wright brothers were NEVER married! Stay away from any machine that flies!

[rbgarr]

Speaking of the Wright Brothers (but totally off topic)

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2003/hack.html

[Keith Wilson]

If you have some kind of life contract or agreement with such a one, you had better build a golden halo around her in your minds eye, Ah, good, you posted that. I was going to; it's one of my favorite LFH quotes, and my have contributed to me being happily married for 26 years. I don't think he was gay, FWIW. Odd, but not queer, ;) and at least from his writing, something of an anachronism. OTOH, all most of us know is what he wrote, and that can be misleading.

[Bob Cleek]

I'd vote for straight, too. I was just trying to pump a little life into the bilge. He was an odd duck, no doubt, and reputedly a "man's man." Who wore goatees in the forties and fifties? My favorite LFH portrait is the one of him running his metal lathe in his dining room. My kind of guy!

[JimD]

I also heard a rumour that he ate raw pumpkins. Pulp and all. Didn't even bother to toast the seeds.